


i want you and you are not here

by johnlock5ever



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Getting Together, M/M, Pre-Slash, Reunion, Tattoo Artist!Phil, punk!dan - Freeform, shy!Phil, well kinda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-09
Updated: 2015-09-09
Packaged: 2018-04-19 21:47:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4762202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/johnlock5ever/pseuds/johnlock5ever
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He wrote about his visits to the country, the streams and lakes and his grandparents’ little cottage by the big yew tree. He wrote about his first holiday to this quaint little town with pastel blue houses and soft pink flowers, so beautifully incongruous with the hustle and bustle of the rest of the country. And he wrote about love - about boys with brown hair and brown eyes and stolen kisses set to <em>Strawberry Fields Forever</em>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i want you and you are not here

**Author's Note:**

> based on this from from phanfic: OK SO PROMPT “as teenagers we were best friends/boyfriends and i was the innocent nerdy guy and you were the punk bad boy who corrupted me (playfully of course) we made out a lot and i gave you my virginity and we lost contact and went on with our lives but we ended it on a good note and now i work as a tattoo artist and youre getting a tattoo at the place i work at and youre still as flirty and pretty as you were like 5 years ago” WITH PHIL AS THE INNOCENT TATTOO ARTIST AND DAN AS THE BADBOY/PUNK AND YOU CAN MAKE IT SMUT OR WHATEVER YOU WANT PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE THX UR AWESOME

_11.58 pm_

 

 _The sense of ennui is the strangest thing_ , Phil writes.  _You start off feeling sick of being tired all the time, and then it drains you, makes you want to lie on the floor until slowly, slowly, your skin turns grey and your breaths don’t come and you simply_  -

He stops. Puts his pen back on his desk. Sighs.

 

_11.59 pm_

 

It’s not like he dislikes his life, per se. He has a secure (albeit not particularly high-paying) job, friends who care about him, a family which loves him (perhaps more than he deserves). He should, for all intents and purposes, be satisfied with where is. 

And yet.

 

* * *

 

 _Phil’s a veteran at the Forest High Drama Club. He has never been one for acting, but his expertise in the sets department is something of a school legend. He doesn’t like attention, never has, so the props workshop is his sanctuary. No one ever really comes in there. Which is why he’s somewhat surprised when an unfamiliar boy comes in and sits on the stool next to him while he’s working on the set for_ Lady Windermere’s Fan _, a play the drama club is staging in three weeks. Without looking away from what he’s sure is going to be his masterpiece, Phil raises an eyebrow._  

 _“You need help with props or something?” he asks. The boy laughs._  

_“Well obviously - I don’t go around watching random people paint props, you know, even if they’re as cute as you,” he replies, and Phil feels his cheeks heat up. “I’m Dan - or for the purposes of this play, Lord Darlington."_

_Phil puts his paintbrush down and looks at Dan._ Fuck, he’s hot _, is the first thought his brain supplies. Dan has warm, pretty eyes, curly brown hair that Phil has an urge to run his fingers through, a large black stud in his right ear, and - oh, is that a_ dimple _? Phil clears his throat before his traitorous hormones can do any more damage. “I’m Phil.”_

 _Dan smirks._ He saw you staring _, Phil thinks and looks pointedly away from Dan’s face. “I know,” Dan says, “I’ve heard so much about your sets, so I wanted to come here and see if they live up to the hype - they definitely do, you’ve got really talented hands.”_

 _Phil’s blushing madly by this point. There’s no way that was an innocent comment, Dan_ definitely _knows what his presence is doing to poor Phil’s nerves. He opens his mouth to thank Dan, when he notices a swirl of black ink near the boy’s collarbone. “Is that a tattoo?” he blurts out, before fully registering what he’s saying. Dan looks surprised._

 _“Yeah.” He pulls down the collar of his shirt to show Phil the words written in black ink -_ living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see _. “It’s a Beatles lyric.”_

_“Lennon, I know. I'm a Ringo fan, myself, but I guess I can forgive you Strawberry Fields.”_

_Dan laughs at that and Phil finds himself wanting to make more Beatles jokes just to make him laugh again. “Mm, you’ve got good taste. I might have to keep you around, Phil Lester,” Dan says appraisingly, before walking out of the workshop. It’s only after he has left that Phil notices a piece of paper on the floor._ We’re all in the gutter, but you make me feel like I’m looking at the stars _, it says, followed by a phone number._

_Phil tucks it into his pocket and starts painting again, humming John Lennon’s tunes under his breath._

 

* * *

 

_12.00 am_

 

Right on cue, his phone starts ringing. Phil can’t help but smile when he picks up.

“Mum.” 

“Happy birthday, sweetheart!” she all but yells into the phone. Phil winces slightly.

“If I go deaf I’m suing you.”

“Well, it’s not every day your favourite son - well, favourite younger son - turns twenty-three!” Phil can practically hear her grinning through the phone.

“Ha ha bloody ha.”

“Don’t you swear at me! Hang on- Dad and Martyn are here.” 

Phil talks to his father (“You’ll be old soon - live a little, kiddo.”) and his brother (“Maybe finally start acting your age, you l’il tosspot.”) before his mother commandeers the phone again. She asks about his job (“alright”), his flat (“tiny but liveable”), his relationship status (“ _Gods_ , Mum, please  _stop_ ”) - before she pauses. Phil braces himself for the inevitable.

“How’s your writing coming along?” she asks in a small voice. Phil swallows.

“Good. Great. Nearly done with the book, actually. I, um, I have to go - bye Mu-“

“I love you, Phil, and I know you’ve got such a way with words but that doesn’t pay the bills, does it? There’s an opening in Aunt Martha’s company - do you want me to put in a word for you?” Phil can hear the uncertainty in her voice. He wants to be mad at her, he really does - but he knows she’s right. Being a tattoo artist might be fun, and give him the flexibility that he needs to work on his book, but maybe that isn’t what he should be doing. 

“Fine. Now I really need to go to bed, bye mum. Love you.” He hangs up. This conversation isn’t over, he knows, but he really can’t deal with this now.

He lies down on his bed and falls into an uneasy slumber.

 

* * *

 

 _Phil has been texting Dan for four days (Dan shares almost all of Phil’s strange, embarrassing obsessions and texts him science jokes at the most inappropriate moments) when his friends decide that_ if you’re getting laid, we need to approve first - it’s for your own good, Philip, _and snatch the phone out of his hands._

_“Dan Howell? You’ve spent the last four days prancing around like a giddy schoolboy because you’re texting Dan bloody Howell?” PJ says incredulously._

_Phil feels the tips of his ears turn red. “Give it back,” he says, glaring at PJ and Louise._

_“Hang on - Howell? One year below, drama kid, has the_ dreamiest _dimples? Well, you could do worse, I suppose,” Louise shrugs and hands him back his phone._

_“We’re not- he’s not- it’s nothing like that,” Phil mumbles. His phone dings._

From: Dan, 23 Oct 12.37 pm

physicists do it in simple harmonic motion ;)

_For the rest of the day, Louise and PJ shoot him knowing looks whenever he takes his phone out of his bag. He ignores them, but he can’t control the warmth that spreads through his chest every time he gets a text and the smile that stays on his face until he goes to bed._

 

* * *

 

It wasn’t supposed to be this way, Phil thinks as he walks to work the next day. He had always had big dreams. When he was four he had wanted to be a veterinarian. By the time he was five, he was convinced that he was going to be the first British President of the United States. At six, he decided that we has going to win a Nobel Prize in Physics. The writing dream had started in sixth form, when his English teacher had signed him up for a creative writing competition. He hadn’t won, but he had realised that the high that came from putting his thoughts to paper was an incredible experience unlike anything he had ever felt before. 

And so he started writing.

He wrote about his visits to the country, the streams and lakes and his grandparents’ little cottage by the big yew tree. He wrote about his first family holiday to Australia, to the quaint little town of Leura with its pastel blue houses and its soft pink flowers, so beautifully incongruous with the hustle and bustle of the rest of the country. And he wrote about love - about boys with brown hair and brown eyes and stolen kisses set to  _Strawberry Fields Forever_.

 _And now?_   he thinks bitterly, _now you’re nothing but a burnout._

 

* * *

 

_They fall into an easy sort of friendship. Phil isn’t used to people paying him much heed. He’s always just been the “shy theatre nerd” - he doesn’t mind it, but it makes the fascination Dan seems to have with him make him feel oddly warm. It also does nothing to help Phil get over his attraction for the younger boy. Dan isn’t just attractive, Phil realises. He’s sharp, funny, talented - but also young, vulnerable, and he makes Phil want to wrap him up in his favourite hoodie and never let go._

_They spend most of their free time hanging out in Phil's workshop. Dan watches Phil work on sets, laughing when Phil invariably gets spots of paint all over his face. In return, Phil helps Dan run lines. (“From the moment I met you I loved you. Loved you blindly, adoringly - madly,” Dan recites with a wink, lowering his voice. Phil tries very hard not to imagine how Dan’s voice sounds when he-_

_He fails, and spends the rest of the afternoon awkwardly crossing his legs and hoping to God that Dan doesn’t notice the slight breathy edge to his voice.)_

_Phil is sitting on the floor of his workshop reading one day, when Dan comes in, throws his bag onto the bench, and sits next to him. Quietly at first, and then-_

_“Read to me.”_

_“What?”_

_“What you’re reading. Read it to me.”_

_Phil looks at the book of poetry in his hands, then at Dan, and clears his throat. He thinks of Dan’s eyes, hands, lips, and reads with as much emotion as he can muster. “I want you,” he reads, “and you are not here.”_

_When he finishes reading, his voice is hoarse and Dan is staring at him with an unreadable expression on his face. Then, without warning, Dan leans forward and kisses Phil._

_Dan’s lips are soft and insistent and when Phil gets over his initial shock and starts kissing him back, Dan smiles, pulls away, and says “I am here. I_ am _here, Phil.”_

 

* * *

 

When Phil enters the tattoo parlour, PJ has already set up shop.

“It’s your birthday, mate, I would’ve given you a day off if you’d asked,” PJ says by way of greeting. 

“Can’t leave you without your best artist, can I?” 

PJ grins. “Could’ve gone and gotten yourself laid, at least.” Then his voice takes on a gentler tone. “It’s- it’s been a while now, hasn’t it?”

Phil forces a laugh and says, “Well, that’ll teach you to never doubt my love for you and your stupid shop.”

He spends the rest of the hour avoiding his friend's eye because in reality, PJ’s comment had hit a little too close to home.

 

* * *

 

 _They’ve gotten into the habit of spending most of their afternoons at Phil’s, alternating between playing Mortal Kombat, attempting to do their homework, and lazily making out on the couch. Phil thanks his lucky stars that his parents are never home until after Dan has left, because he’s pretty sure that the way Dan whimpers when Phil brushes his lips across his pulse point is positively_ obscene _._

_(Sometimes Phil takes out his notebook and writes pages and pages about a boy with galaxies in his eyes and stars on his skin. Dan watches him scribble messily on the pages, nearly scratch holes in them, rip them apart and start again. When Phil is done, he reads out what he has written as Dan trails kisses down his neck, chest, thighs.)_

_“I dreamt about you last night,” Dan says one day when they’re lounging on Phil's bed watching Wall-E and eating their way through three bags of crisps. “I dreamt that you were fucking me." Phil’s breath catches in his throat._

_“Oh.”_

_“Yeah,” Dan mutters. And then quietly, "Do you want to fuck me?”_

_Phil stares pointedly at the ground until he feels a pair of hands gently cupping his chin and tilting his head up so that he’s looking straight at Dan. “Phil?” Dan says softly, and it is then that Phil sees the flicker of uncertainty in his big brown eyes. He lets out a shaky breath. Dan is still so young, Phil realises. He might act confident and flirtatious but he’s just a sixteen-year-old boy who’s afraid that Phil doesn’t want him._

_Phil closes the gap between them and kisses him like his life depends on it. “Yes,” he breathes in-between kisses. “Yes, yes, yes."_

 

* * *

 

“Rat-a-tat Tats, how may I help you?”

“Hi, is Phil Lester around?”

“This is he.”

“Right, could I make an appointment with you for two in the afternoon today?”

“Sure. Your name, sir?”

“Um, Ringo. See you then!”

“Oh- alright then Mr, um, Ringo, can I confi-“ _beep._

 

* * *

 

_“Remember to lock the door this time,” Dan says with a smirk as Phil settles on his bed._

_“I’m not an idiot, Dan.”_

_“Really? Because the last time you said that your brother walked in and saw a good deal more of me than I’m comf-"_

_“Shut up,” Phil groans. Dan tackles him onto his back._

_“Make me,” he whispers with a come-hither look that leaves no room for interpretation._

_“I don’t make trash, I burn it,” says Phil, grinning when Dan pulls away, pouting._

_“Why does that line never play out like it does in the movies?”_

_“Well, this isn’t a movie, is it?”_

_A curious looks comes over Dan’s face. “No,” he says with a slight frown, “No, I guess it isn’t.”_

 

* * *

 

Phil spends the rest of his shift wondering who his mystery caller could have been. His brother? No, Martyn’s in Manchester. One of his uni friends? Unlikely, he barely talks to most of them. He tries to focus on his other clients, but his mind keeps wandering. 

That voice, though. Phil knows he’s heard it somewhere before. And Ringo? Obviously a fake name. He hasn’t heard anyone talk about Ringo since-

He shakes his head. No, he’s not going to think about who Ringo reminds him of, he can't afford to. 

He gets back to work.

 

* * *

 

 _They've always known that things will change when Phil goes off to university. Which is why he doesn’t understand the strange pang in his chest when he gets his acceptance letter from York - until he sees the look on Dan’s face. Dan is happy for Phil, that much is obvious. But what is even more obvious is that he looks positively_ broken _. Phil is going to be starting a new life, in a new setting and with new friends, but Dan is going to be left behind._

 _They spend the week before Phil leaves learning every inch of each other. Phil kisses Dan reverently on every bit of exposed skin he sees._ I love you _, he means. He doesn’t say it. Dan cries a lot. Never in front of Phil, but Phil can see the puffiness around his eyes and hear the melancholy in his voice._

_The night before Phil is due to leave, Dan comes over and they lie on Phil’s bed, silent, wrapped around each other. Before Dan heads home, he stands in the doorway, looking at Phil._

_“I lo-“ he starts to say. Phil stops him._

_“Please, please don’t make this harder than it already is,” Phil says. He feels his voice choking up. Dan nods, pecks him on the cheek, and leaves. It feels like a goodbye._

_Dan doesn’t come to see him off the next day._

 

* * *

 

By the time the clock strikes two, Phil is starting to get restless. He stares eagerly at the door, biting his fingernails. 

The minute hand of the clock ticks on steadily.  

Nothing.

Two-fifteen. Two-thirty. Phil sweeps the shop once, twice. Still nothing. Just disappointment and regret.

At two-forty-five, PJ leaves. Phil says he’ll clean up, mostly to avoid the pitying looks PJ is shooting at him. He feels numb. It’s fine, he tells himself. Just some stupid birthday prank. Probably just one of Martyn’s mates. He chides his mind for allowing him to believe that it was something more.

He’s about to call it a day when the little bell at the front door rings. Phil is about to yell that they’re closed for the day when-

“Hey, birthday boy. You look gorgeous as ever.”

Phil freezes. No. No, it can’t be. He knows that voice. He feels himself trembling. “We’re closed,” he manages to choke out. 

The other person laughs - an all too familiar laugh - and suddenly there’s someone standing next to him, saying, “You’re a hard man to find, Phil Lester.”

At this, Phil looks up and he nearly pinches himself because there, in front of him, is Dan. _His_ Dan. His beautiful, beautiful Dan with his big brown eyes and small little dimple.

Dan’s taller than him now, Phil observes absently. He looks more confident - time ( _four years, four months, twenty-one days,_  not that Phil’s been counting) has been good to him. His shoulders are broader (he fills out his black jumper really nicely), his hair is shorter, his smile is wider. God, Phil wants to kiss him again. 

Instead, he just gapes.

After a few seconds, Dan’s smile fades. “Should I- should I go?” he asks mildly, and ah, there it is. That flicker of uncertainty, that flash of vulnerability. It is this that makes Phil reach out and press his lips against Dan’s.

Dan kisses him like he’s drowning and Phil is the only thing keeping him afloat. “Phil, fuck, _Phil_ ,” he breathes as Phil bites and sucks at his bottom lip, “you have no idea how much I’ve missed you.” He gasps lightly as Phil moves down to kiss the patch of skin below his ear. “I have some,” Phil replies, and rests his forehead against Dan’s.

They go back to Phil’s apartment. Clothes are strewn haphazardly on the floor, on the desk, on the chairs. Phil learns, once again, exactly how to make Dan squirm. Dan learns how to touch him so that he’s screaming Dan’s name. They kiss like they’re trying to make up for four _centuries_ of lost time. Phil runs his tongue over Dan's tattoo, just like he used to, and when Dan says "I wanted to get a Yellow Submarine tattoo, too," Phil spends a moment staring at him before they start laughing until their sides hurt and they're clutching at each other for dear life. 

And they talk. They talk until they’re tired of their own voices - and then some more. Dan tells Phil about his new life as a barista, about how he had heard of Phil when he was searching for the best places to get a tattoo. Phil tells him about PJ’s tattoo parlour. They share anecdotes from school and laugh, and when Phil’s eyes start prickling dangerously with hot tears, Dan holds him close and strokes his hair and says _I’m here, I’m here, I’m here._

It’s nearly three in the morning when Dan falls asleep in Phil’s arms. Phil spends a long moment taking in his profile and places a light kiss on his forehead before he pulls out his notebook from his bedside drawer and smiles.

And for the first time in years, he forgets all his worries, and  _writes_.

* * *

 

_fin._

**Author's Note:**

> references made:
> 
> 1) "we're all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars." - lord darlington (lady windermere's fan)
> 
> for the uninitiated, lady windermere's fan is an incredible play by oscar wilde. it's set in the victorian era so I'd imagine the sets required to be pretty elaborate. hence the need for phil lester and his very talented hands (eyyyyy).
> 
> 2) "living is easy with eyes closed / misunderstanding all you see." 
> 
> one of my favourite lines from strawberry fields forever. i actually really want a tattoo of this line but i'm not sure it'll look tacky so i've given it to dan. let him deal with the consequences.
> 
> 3) leura
> 
> oh god you guys i have been DYING to tell people about leura okay so basically i went to sydney with my family this summer and we took a coach to the blue mountains and on the way we passed by this gorgeous, quaint little town called leura which - i kid you not - looked like it had stepped out of a fairytale/wes anderson movie it is so so so beautiful i felt like i was in a dream
> 
> 4) "i want you and you are not here." - miles away, carol ann duffy
> 
> there's something about this line that makes me feel like my heart is being ripped out of my chest. anyway, it's a lovely poem, do check it out!
> 
> 5) "yellow submarine" 
> 
> a beatles song sung by ringo. poor, poor ringo.
> 
> last but not least, i'd like to thank you guys for the overwhelmingly positive response to my other fic "crossy road" (#spon). the only reason why i decided to write this was the comments i got from y'all on that one. i don't know how i feel about this one, tbh, and i don't think i did what the prompt asked for but it's always nice to go back and read your feedback. so yeah. thank you <3


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